SmartBird from Festo flies like a real bird

We caught sight of the Festo SmartBird back in March this year, where said robot boasted of extremely realistic wing movements and flight motion, even going so far as to turn its head in order to steer. Well, Markus Fischer and his team at Festo demonstrated their seagull inspired SmartBird over at TEDGlobal 2011, letting the SmartBird flap its wings across the heads of audiences – minus the droppings, of course.

You can always check out the video of the SmartBird in action after the jump, and be totally amazed. It would be interesting to see just how this kind of technology will be implemented in everyday use – perhaps we could have fuel-less passenger aircraft in the future simply because planes then will have wings that can flap? Something tells me that the military would want to have a closer look at this before such technology will hit the mainstream consumer market…